100 years on, international conferences debate Jewish role in Russian Revolution

The Jews in Stalin’s secret police, and where to lay blame for pogroms that killed thousands, are among topics up for discussion in academies from New York to Ukraine

NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda was Jewish, Brent says, and the first minister of justice in Soviet Russia, Isaac Steinberg, was a religious Jew. And, according to Brent, the instrumental person in the arrest of renowned Jewish author Isaac Babel was also Jewish.

“Everybody [in Stalin’s Russia] was a victim and a victimizer,” he said. “This is a hard thing for the Jews to understand. They can’t stand the idea of being more than innocent victims.”

The Times of Israel, 2017